Iraq Watch: September 25, 2006

Senior al-Qaida Militant Killed

A senior al-Qaida figure who last July escaped along with three other inmates from a Afghanistan jail was killed early Monday morning during a raid by British forces in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra.

Omar al-Farouq, who also went by Mahmoud Ahmed or the nom de guerre Omar al-Iraqi, was shot dead when some 250 British troops stormed his residence in the city's predominately Sunni Junainah neighborhood. Al-Farouq was reportedly killed after he attempted to fire on his pursuers.

Born in Kuwait to Iraqi parents, al-Farouq was rumored to have assumed control over al-Qaida's operations in Southeast Asia following the apprehension of Abu Zubaydah in March 2002. Al-Farouq's position was short lived, however, as he was apprehended by Indonesian police in Jakarta in June of the same year.

The New York Times reports that al-Farouq had entered Iraq through Kuwait a few weeks ago and had been staying with his brother in the border town of Zubayr. Al-Farouq purportedly traveled to Basra, Iraq's second largest metropolis, to visit his ailing mother.

Following his 2002 arrest in Jakarta, al-Farouq was readily handed over into American custody and shipped to the U.S.-run detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan. Al-Farouq gained prominence when in July of 2005 he, along with three other prisoners, escaped from the maximum-security detention center at Bagram Airbase.

Iraq Watch: September 20, 2006

Bombers Target Security Forces

More than 65 Iraqis have been killed over the last 24 hours in attacks throughout the county in yet another bloody spasm of violence.

Over the same time span, at least 35 bodies have been discovered discarded in and around the capital city of Baghdad according to Reuters.

Coordinated strikes near an Iraqi military complex north of Baghdad left over 20 Iraqis dead and 50 wounded. Late Tuesday evening, a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army base in Sharqat. As on-lookers amassed at the scene of the explosion a suicide bomber detonated his explosives sending shrapnel tearing through the growing crowd.

Raad Hussein Hamdani, one of the injured, told the Washington Post: "A large fireball rose up, and I could see human parts flying up in all directions."

In the capital, meanwhile, a suicide bomber plowed a truck filled with explosives into an Iraqi police barracks in Baghdad's volatile southern Dora district. The bomber detonated his payload as Iraqi police were arriving at work. The mammoth blast, which leveled much of the building, killed at least seven and injured 14.

Elsewhere, a suicide car bomber blew up his car outside the home of a Sunni tribal leader in the city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. The blast claimed the lives of at least 10 civilians and wounded nearly 40 more. Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the targeted chieftain was purportedly an opponent of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Iraq Watch: September 9, 2006

Shiites Converge on Holy City

An estimated three to four million Shiites from across the Muslim world gathered in the holy city of Karbala Saturday to participate in the culmination of a religious festival celebrating the birthday of Shia Islam's twelfth imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi (Mohammed ibn Hasan ibn Ali), often referred to as the "hidden imam."

The event ended largely without incident, although sectarian violence was seen in the days leading up to the festival.

Three festival-goers were killed yesterday in a mortar attack near Musayyib, while some 14 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims were abducted and murdered last week en route to the holy city situated 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Al-Mahdi, born in 868 in Samarra, Iraq, is considered by the majority Shiites as the twelfth and final imam. He is called the hidden imam because Shiite's believe al-Mahdi disappeared and went into a state of occultation, or ghaybat, as an adolescent.

According to Shiite lure, al-Mahdi will return on the day of judgment as the savior of mankind.

In violence elsewhere in Iraq Saturday, roadside bombs in the northern city of Kirkuk killed four people and wounded 16 others.

Also, authorities discovered at least seven bodies across Iraq. Six of the corpses were found in Mahmoudiya, a religiously mixed town south of Baghdad.

Iraq Watch: September 3, 2006

Iraqi Forces Apprehend Insurgent Leader

Iraq's National Security Advisor Mouwafak al-Rubaie announced Sunday that Iraqi forces have captured insurgent leader Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi during a recent raid.

Al-Rubaie described the previously unknown al-Saeedi as al-Qaida in Iraq's second-in-command, behind only Abu Ayyub al-Masri (Abu Hamza al-Muhajer) who took over the reigns of the organization following the June 7 death of former guerilla leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Saeedi, who is also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, was apprehended "a few days ago" in an Iraqi-led raid southwest of the volatile town of Baqouba.

Al-Saeedi is believed to have played a supervising role in the February 22 bombing of the revered Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. The mosque bombing caused a dramatic up-tick in the communal sectarian bloodletting that is currently plaguing Iraq.

The Iraqi government previously named Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri as the chief perpetrator of the Askariya attack.

Al-Badri remains at large although Yousri Fakher Mohammed Ali (Abu Qudama), a purported accomplice in the bombing, was arrested in June.

On Monday the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an insurgent umbrella organization that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, acknowledged al-Saeedi's capture in a statement posted on the Internet. However, the group – purportedly led by Abdullah bin Rashid al-Baghdadi – refuted that al-Saeedi was number two in the al-Qaida in Iraq hierarchy.